Colonel (ret.) Jindřich Sitta

"Successes, whether in the Persian Gulf, in Albania or in Afghanistan, were often based on violations of regulations. Even our commander Honza Valo in the Persian Gulf had to violate regulations, he had to. The fact that he finally let us go to Kuwait was his decision, which he simply accepted. He had to make a decision: either I'm breaking the rules or we're traitors to the coalition forces. He had to make a decision, too. I guess the situation is different today, because the standards are there and they're worked out for all kinds of situations, but twenty years ago it was down to the commander making the right decision or the wrong decision. It couldn't be applied...I'm convinced - even though it was blamed on me, even though it was explained to me that it could be done - I'm convinced that twenty years ago it was simply a gross improvisation."

"We were supposed to provide humanitarian aid at some small town deep in the rear. However, then on the place, when the Saudi army and I think the allies found out that we had anti-chemical equipment that the Saudi troops lacked, there was an agreement on the ground that we would not provide humanitarian aid somewhere, but that we would be assigned to combat units. So on that basis we were given a starting point near the town of Hafar al-Batin, where we set up our tent base. We moved to that base, except for part of the command, which stayed at that Prince Khalid base, and we started in that Hafar al-Batin. Then when it came to deploying troops, let's say, to the front line, we were divided into three parts. Each unit of the Saudi army got a part of the Czech, Czechoslovakian unit, which was to provide them with anti-chemical security. The problem was that we were basically going out as a unit and we were prepared to provide this security for only one place. And suddenly we had four places. We had Prince Khalid's base, where the coalition troop command stayed, where we were providing counter-chemical protection. It was that Hafar al-Batin, and then it was the two Saudi brigade positions that we were supposed to protect as well. So we were able to partially accomplish that because we went out sort of equipped with some supplies, but partially we were not able to accomplish that. I don't think that's reflected much, that experience. We were forced at several points there to build Potemkin villages and pretend that we were capable of that when we weren't."

"The medical detachment, which included four doctors and about twenty-six other members, began to prepare in Hostivice near Prague. Naturally, the army was trained to fight in the Central European theatre of war. So we didn't really know what it would be like there. So the first thing we tried to do was to find out what kind of... It should be remembered that in that year, eighty-nine, the professional soldiers in fact didn't even get to go to friendly countries, let alone abroad. Nowadays, you go to Egypt on holiday and you know what it's like there. That experience was completely lacking. So we were looking for various contacts of people who had served in Libya or something like that, to get from them what the climatic conditions were like, what to expect there, possibly snakes, scorpions, diseases and so on. From that, we came up with a list of what we could expect there, and we started to equip the unit and prepare it for what it was going to face there. Just to get an ice maker, for example, was just a huge problem, but without the ice, it was basically impossible. So it took a while to convince the medical service leadership that with what the Central European theatre had available, it would be difficult to succeed there. It ended up that General Jiránek-I think that was his name at the time-issued instructions, 'Open up the depots, including the research institutes, and let them choose.' So then we started going around to get all these things. I mentioned the ice maker, which just at that time was a research task that was being worked on, so we equipped the medical detachment with whatever was within the capabilities of the army at that time in the medical area, including, therefore, those research institutes."